Beast or Burden: Giving Thanks

Everything the Lakers do right now carries with it a giant asterisk mark since Steve Nash is not with the team, seeing as he gives an entirely new dimension to what the Lakers do on the court, but we can appreciate what the team is doing in his absence. Lest we forget, this is a squad whose coach requires playmakers to make his system work, except you could be forgiven if this fact has eluded you in the past week or so given that the Lakers have looked excellent on offense. This was a team that began the season in utter disarray and out of the fiasco that was Mike Brown, both his tenure and his firing, as well as the variety of injuries and maladies that have limited certain members of the team and kept others off the court, we now have some semblance of a functioning squad.

Of course, this current iteration of the team is not perfect by any means, the poor effort in the Sacramento game as the premier example, but there is simply no way that the Mike Brown-led one that dropped the first three games of the year is competitive in the kind of contest the Brooklyn game devolved into. In the first time this season, the team has an identity to adhere to, and while their execution on the floor in pursuit of that identity is certainly not ideal, it can at least be viewed as progress in the right direction, something that was not visible with Mike Brown at the helm. So let us be thankful for Bernie Bickerstaff for overseeing a transfer of power in a smooth a fashion as possible and D'Antoni hopefully providing us with the path towards contention that we want the team to tread down.

Beast

• Kobe Bryant -- A good portion of that depends on Kobe maintaining this astonishing level of play, so we should be especially thankful to the basketball gods for letting us see Kobe as good as he's ever been. And make no mistake: the Kobe from last year wasn't capable of the kind of performances he is putting out right now. Neither his hops nor his handle were good enough for Kobe to round picks and probe the defense, with the threat of his dribble penetration going all the way to the rim just as much of a threat as his midrange jumper. Kobe, moreover, adopting the mindset of a playmaker who needs to help the rest of the offense work has been worth its weight in gold, considering that there really aren't any other players capable of doing that on the roster. A player who can sit back and set up his teammates and take over at the opportune moment is invaluable and Kobe has provided all of that for the Lakers this season.
• Metta World Peace -- Don't look now, but Metta has recovered in a huge way from his early season woes, as he quietly has taken on a key role in D'Antoni's offense as a designated wing shooter and occasional attacker from that area. We expected Metta to bounce back in a big way from last year due to the excellent shape he was in during camp and while he did not meet those expectations initially, he certainly has so of late; his current PER is the best it's been in a Laker uniform and he only looks more comfortable every game. Given that we thought he would be a primary weak link in our starting five, for him to be one of the more consistent performers is something to be very thankful for.
• Darius Morris -- With both Nash and Steve Blake out, the onus fell on Morris to finally prove that his potential wasn't going to stay unrealized, and he met that challenge. There is no doubt his game needs a good deal of refinement and growth, but for a player who would be in his senior year in college to take advantage of his available opportunity and show some good defensive aptitude and burgeoning confidence on offense is something that needless to say, we should be very thankful of. The Morris of last year and preseason appeared nowhere near the task of being a starting point guard for such a talented squad and if anything, the key bright spot of the absence of two of the Lakers' playmakers has been the revelation that we might have another one in the wings.
• Jodie Meeks -- Just as we discovered the good with the bad with Nash's injury giving Morris the opportunity to shine, Meeks was the lone good story from the Sacramento game, finally capitalizing on all the hype we gave him during the offseason as a shooter the Lakers could finally have present to work off their core players. And give D'Antoni credit, as he rode Meeks' hot hand as long as he could and Meeks reciprocated by putting up shots when he was open -- or less than open; guy is certainly not gun-shy and that is an attribute you want in your spot shooters. You ultimately need three or so good bench contributors in the playoffs and Meeks could shape up to be one of those individuals if the comfort he displayed last night continues into the rest of the year.
• Honorable mention to Jordan Hill, as like Morris, a consistent role and playing time allowed him to take advantage of his potential this season. And Hill looks amazingly refined for a player who showed a lot of talent initially in his career but didn't have the refinement to take advantage of it. And now, he has a diversified post game -- the counter to his lefty hook in the Brooklyn game and the baseline fadeaway against Sacramento were shocking displays from what we thought was a limited post player -- and a nice midrange jumper; if anything, we should be featuring him much more in the offense. He also is unequiovically the Lakers' second best defender among the bigs, with active help defense and solid pick-and-roll coverage. So let us not only be thankful to Hill for his play, which slipped somewhat in the last two games although we could attribute that to insufficient playing time, but to Mitch Kupchak, who committed highway robbery by getting him for Derek Fisher's decrepit corpse and a first rounder we never were going to get.